Email marketing is effective in building relationships with the customers, driving leads and sales, and maximizing the profitability of your business. With an average ROI of 38x of the initial investment, email marketing is one of the best investments you can make for your marketing strategy.

Choosing a marketing agency for your business can be one of the most important decisions you’ll make. Not only is the difference between a good, an okay and a terrible agency going to affect your business and your brand massively, it’s also an important financial decision. A typical marketing agency contract is for a year which is a significant investment both in terms of time and resources for you. So to get it right is very important.

Sure, all agencies, including us, put our best foot forward and dress up our credentials to pose to be the best people for the job, but beyond the optics, there should be a lot of non-visible and background research that should go into choosing the right one for you.

There is a lot that goes into creating and implementing an effective email marketing strategy and it requires a lot of time and attention to deliver great results. As a result, hiring the best email marketing agency can be a great opportunity to help grow your business and generate more revenue.

In this article, you will find  some of the most important considerations to keep in mind when you are planning to hire an email marketing agency:

1. The agency performs a complete digital marketing audit: It’s very important that the agency you are hiring does a complete analysis of your industry and needs so they can create a marketing strategy based on real data that will generate results. They should also spend time analyzing your business, reviewing your existing email campaigns, if any, and offering relevant insights, and offering a customized plan for your business and its objectives.

2. The agency has a team of experts: Having access to a team of experts in multiple areas like digital marketing, e-commerce,  copywriting, and design will deliver a 360 degree digital marketing marketing.

3. Strategic Plan: Every client is unique and so the strategy to their success needs to be unique as well. That’s why it is very important that the agency creates a short and long term plan that will drive success now and in the future.

4. The agency offers basic and advanced Email Flows: It’s very important that the agency has the ability to analyze customer behavior and set up automated email sequences to target those behaviors and generate revenue. Flows alone generate 20-40% of the overall store revenue for most businesses and hence are the most important pillar of email marketing. Some of the most important flows to design are Welcome Flow, Cart Abandonment Flow, Add to Cart Flow, and Browse Abandonment Flow.

5. The agency has shown results in the niches you operate in

When considering an email agency, do ask for their experience and results-driven for businesses or industries similar to yours. Many agencies can boast of high performance, but may not be relevant in your industry. Feel free to ask for niche based email marketing case studies, testimonials from actual clients and if needed, also request for a reference or a call with another client.

6. The agency has the best tools for email marketing

It is very important to check the tools the agency is using to develop your email marketing strategy. First, check the platform/software they are on since the choice of the agency’s tech stack can considerably affect the results they’re able to deliver. One of the best Email Service Providers (ESP) for ecommerce and the one we partner with is Klaviyo, a growth marketing platform that helps you deliver more personalized experiences across owned marketing channels like email, SMS, in-app notifications, and web. Additionally, Klaviyo also offers a great dashboard to keep track of all your important data that will help you improve your strategy and overall performance. 

7. The agency offers comprehensive reporting: Regular and comprehensive reporting is crucial to a business’s success. The agency should be able to provide a regular and timely report tracking all the email marketing metrics that matter to your business and make them intelligible to you.  For example, if the agency is only tracking metrics like Open and Click rates but ignoring lesser known metrics like list growth, unsubscribe rate and completely ignoring future sales and growth projections, it’s going to lend a myopic vision of your business and eventually affect your ability to grow and scale the business.

8. List Size growth: A good email marketing agency will not just work on working with your existing email lists but will also assist increasing and optimising your email lists with creative and strategic interventions like signup forms, quizzes, landing pages, and more. 

9. Availability of translators: Today’s businesses are multinational and serve many businesses. You can be based in one location, but your products can have a market in many other countries. With time, you’ll want to personalise and localise your marketing and emails are going to be a huge part of it. So, look for an agency that can offer their content in a language other than just the main one, usually English. Even if your primary market today is one language, for a future growth mindset, it is important to consider if the agency you are looking for has translators available in case you are considering expanding your business to different markets. 

10. Working hours and ease of working

Last but not least: Other than expertise and the right tools, it’s also important that your agency is responsive, easy to work with, and is available at the right time. Make sure your agency has a representative that is available to chat or respond to emails at a time you prefer. Also, check what tools or platforms they use for communication and project management.  We at Hustler for example use Asana for project management where we list, track and update all the tasks related to your project and use Slack and Zoom for communication which makes it really simple and quick to stay in touch with our clients and offer them full transparency on their projects.

Before you choose the right agency for your business, make sure you know what you want from them in terms of marketing experience, agency size, and price. Then, it’s up to the agency to prove they are the best fit for your business goals.

If we fit the bill as per the checklist above, book a free call with our experts today to get a health-check on your email strategy, and a customised plan that delivers.